


rest your weary head

by sara_wolfe



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Amnesia, Bathing/Washing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Wing Grooming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 10:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20424461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_wolfe/pseuds/sara_wolfe
Summary: He found Crowley kneeling in the middle of the shop, illuminated by the light of the full moon coming in through the windows. His wings were out, trembling with the effort of mantling in a defensive position, feathers broken, bleeding, or just missing in places. What skin Aziraphale could see was dark with either blood or burns. His head was hanging low, hair hiding his face. He was naked and smelled of brimstone and hellfire.He’d been gone for less than twenty-four hours.





	rest your weary head

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Queen's "Play the Game".
> 
> Rape/non-con is marked as a warning, but it's only referenced and never shown.

Reports to Hell took a while, Aziraphale knew. He was prepared for Crowley to disappear for weeks, often months on end. He was prepared for Crowley coming back from Hell surly and snappish, jumping at every little movement, every sound. He was prepared for Crowley steadfastly refusing to tell him exactly what went on down there, although Aziraphale certainly had his suspicions. 

Nothing could have ever prepared him for _this_.

He was upstairs in his rarely-used bedroom reading when he heard a crash from downstairs. Coming down the bottom floor, he found Crowley kneeling in the middle of the shop, illuminated by the light of the full moon coming in through the windows. His wings were out, trembling with the effort of mantling in a defensive position, feathers broken, bleeding, or just missing in places. What skin Aziraphale could see was dark with either blood or burns. His head was hanging low, hair hiding his face. He was naked and smelled of brimstone and hellfire. 

He’d been gone for less than twenty-four hours. 

Crowley’s head snapped up as Aziraphale moved slowly closer, his eyes wild and terrified. He shrank away from Aziraphale, arms and wings instinctively flying up to try and protect himself, crying out in pain as his injuries worsened with the movement. Aziraphale froze mid-step.

“Crowley,” he called out, softly, crouching in an attempt to make himself smaller and less threatening. “Crowley, it’s me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Crowley stared at him for several tense seconds, wings still mantled above his head and arms outstretched like he was trying to ward off a blow. Aziraphale felt his heart clench at the shattered, fearful look on Crowley’s face, but he tried not to let his reaction show. 

“You’re safe,” he said, quietly. “You came back to me and you’re safe, now. I’ve got you. No one’s going to hurt you, here.”

He waited anxiously, barely daring to breathe, for Crowley to respond to the sound of his voice. He kept talking in a low voice, not even paying attention to what he was saying. And slowly, Crowley relaxed his painfully-tense position, his wings slumping closer and closer to the ground. 

“That’s it,” Aziraphale soothed, his eyes never leaving Crowley. “You’re safe.”

Finally, Crowley’s wings were resting completely on the floor, his arms falling limply to his sides with a pained whimper. Aziraphale moved slowly closer, carefully putting a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley still tried to flinch away, all the fight seemed to have faded out of him and he hardly moved. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale tried again, hesitantly. Crowley lifted his head just enough to meet his eyes, and Aziraphale felt sick with worry at the utter confusion in his eyes. “My dear, do you know where you are?” he ventured. 

Crowley’s eyes darted around quickly, like he was taking in his surroundings for the first time. Then, with obvious reluctance, he shook his head wordlessly. Aziraphale’s anxiety increased. 

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer. 

Another head shake, and Crowley cringed away like he was expecting more pain. Aziraphale closed his eyes for a second, struggling to get several conflicting emotions under control. 

“That’s all right, my dear,” he said, trying to paste a reassuring smile on his face. “I’m Aziraphale. I’m your friend.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley repeated, hoarsely, sounding out the name. 

“That’s right,” Aziraphale said, encouragingly. “Crowley, dearest, will you let me look at your injuries?”

Crowley tensed up, his shoulders hunching, and Aziraphale moved away a bit to give him some space. “You’re my friend?” Crowley whispered, after an agonizingly long moment, and it sounded less like a question and more like a plea. 

“You are my dearest friend in all of Creation,” Aziraphale reassured him. 

Crowley took a deep breath, slowly relaxing enough to let Aziraphale get closer. A wary look still lurked in his eyes, and he was clearly fighting the urge to cringe away from Aziraphale’s hands, but he stayed still as Aziraphale carefully examined the injuries he could see in the moonlight. 

“Will you come upstairs with me?” Aziraphale finally asked. “The light is better, and I have a first aid kit upstairs and I can treat your injuries better up there.”

Crowley eyed him suspiciously, like he was expecting the offer to be some kind of trap, but after a second, he put his hand in Aziraphale’s, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. He swayed dangerously backward once he was upright, and Aziraphale acted without thinking, wrapping his arm around Crowley’s waist to keep him standing. Crowley hissed in pain as Aziraphale’s arm brushed against his wounded wings, but at least he didn’t try to pull away. 

“I’ve got you,” Aziraphale said, taking more of Crowley’s weight in his arms. 

They started toward the stairs, but Crowley only took a single step before he cried out in agony, knees buckling underneath him. Too startled to catch him, Aziraphale could only cushion his fall as best he could and keep him from hurting himself further as he hit the floor. Crowley’s legs splayed out to the side as he fell, and Aziraphale sucked in a sharp breath when he saw Crowley’s feet. Misshapen and purple with pooled blood, his feet had been clearly broken in several places. 

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale breathed. “Oh, my dear, what did they do to you?”

“They hurt me,” Crowley whispered, so quiet that Aziraphale could barely hear him, and he sounded so timid, so afraid that Aziraphale wanted to cry. 

“Never again,” Aziraphale vowed, meeting Crowley’s shocked gaze. “I will never let this happen to you again. Even if I have to take on all of Hell, myself.” Taking a deep breath to compose himself, he gave Crowley a tremulous smile. “Now, let’s get you upstairs, hmm?”

Since Crowley was clearly unable to walk, Aziraphale scooped him up in his arms and stood, careful not to jostle Crowley any more than absolutely necessary. He quickly dismissed the stairs as a bad idea, teleporting them upstairs with a thought. Laying Crowley carefully down on his bed, he headed for the bathroom where he kept the first aid kit. 

The kit was still fairly well stocked after the last time Aziraphale had used it - ironically the last time Crowley had shown up at the bookshop injured. Aziraphale hated that he couldn’t just heal Crowley’s injuries like he could have a human, but they’d discovered through painful trial and error that angelic magic did not mesh well with demonic. So he’d do the best he could with human medicine, and time would hopefully take care of the rest. 

In the bedroom, he found Crowley watching him with an inscrutable look from where he was lying on top of the covers. He was quiet as Aziraphale pulled out a thick stack of cotton squares and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, wetting the squares and using them to clean the worst of the injuries to see the extent of the damage. He didn’t even react to the sting of the alcohol, although given the pain he was already in, it was possible he didn’t even feel it. 

Aziraphale worked in silence for a long while, cleaning a jagged wound on Crowley’s side and stitching it up. He felt sick at the sight of the injury, of all Crowley’s injuries that he’d endured, but his hands remained steady as he handled the suture needle. 

“Why?” Crowley asked, breaking the silence, and Aziraphale looked up from his work long enough to see Crowley looking at him with a perplexed look on his face. “Why are you doing this for me? Why would you take on Hell for me?”

“Because we’re friends,” Aziraphale said, prepared to repeat that as many times as Crowley needed to be reassured. “Because I care about you, and I don’t like seeing you in pain, and if I can stop it from happening again, I will.”

Crowley was still staring at him in disbelief. “I’m a demon,” he said, slowly, like he thought Aziraphale might have missed that detail. 

“You’re Crowley,” Aziraphale corrected him, as he finished up the last stitch. “May I look at your wings, my dear?” he asked. “You’ve got some broken feathers that I want to look at.”

Wordlessly, Crowley rolled carefully over onto his stomach, stretching out his nearest wing until it was draped over Aziraphale’s lap. He pillowed his head on his arms, watching Aziraphale’s every move. Ever so gently, Aziraphale started his examination.

Whoever had hurt Crowley’s wings, they’d clearly intended for him to survive the torture. Feathers were broken or missing, some of them torn straight out of the shafts. But the missing blood feathers that should have made him bleed to death had instead been roughly cauterized closed; likely to provide a new level of torture, but it had also kept Crowley alive. Aziraphale wasn’t grateful to Crowley’s tormentor - Heavens no! - but he was very grateful at the moment to have Crowley here safe with him, rather than bleeding out in some dark corner of Hell, alone and in agony.

He ran his fingers through the feathers, checking for feathers that needed to come out and tending to the ones that could be saved. He kept his movements slow and careful, not wanting to distress Crowley any more than he already was. It took longer than a normal preening session would have, but he wanted to be thorough. 

When he was finished with the first wing, he switched over the other to give it the same treatment. Crowley had closed his eyes by then, and didn’t open them even when Aziraphale had his fingers buried in his feathers, and Aziraphale was touched by the show of trust he’d been given. He was determined, more than ever, not to mess up. 

After he’d meticulously gone over every centimeter of Crowley’s wings, he turned his attention to the smaller injuries. Conjuring up a warm bowl of water and a soft washcloth, he started carefully cleaning off the soot, grime, and trails of dried blood that covered his skin. He’d thought Crowley was asleep, but then he swiped the cloth a bit too low on Crowley’s spine and he could feel him tense up under his hands. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, moving the cloth away from the area that Crowley reacted to. “Did I hurt you?”

There was a long silence, and then, “…no.”

And that pretty much confirmed the suspicions that Aziraphale had been harboring for a while. But he swallowed back any of a dozen retorts that leaped to his tongue; nothing he could say right now would change what had happened, and Crowley wasn’t likely to take any comfort from him when he couldn’t even remember him. 

“May I look for injuries?” he asked, instead. He didn’t want to cause Crowley any more distress than he was already under, but he also didn’t want to leave any wounds untreated. 

Crowley was so still that he might have been a statue, but then he nodded, slowly, before burying his face in his arms. Aziraphale worked carefully but quickly, not wanting to prolong the experience, and he and Crowley were both tense and anxious by the time he was done. Crowley’s muscles shook under Aziraphale’s hands as he finished his examination as fast as he dared. 

“All done,” he finally said, as he packed up the now-depleted first aid kit and standing to take it back into the bathroom.

“Thank you,” Crowley murmured, so softly that Aziraphale could almost imagine that he’d imagined it. 

“You’re welcome,” he said, wishing for better words but not finding any. 

He lingered in the bathroom for a couple of minutes, trying to compose himself. He couldn’t stop the stinging tears that had been threatening to fall for the last half hour, but he did a quick miracle to shield the room; the last thing Crowley needed was to be burdened with his messy emotions. It took him longer than he liked to get himself under control, but he only dared leave the bathroom when no traces of his breakdown were visible on his face. 

Out in the bedroom, he found Crowley sprawled across almost the entire surface of the bed, wings stretched out behind him where they’d be supported by the mattress. Aziraphale widened the bed with a thought, until it was long enough for Crowley’s wings to extend all the way out. Crowley craned his head around to look at him in surprise, stretching his wings out to their full length after a minute. 

“Do you want some water?” Aziraphale asked. “Something to eat?” Crowley shook his head, still watching him. “Then I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” Aziraphale said, starting toward the door, and it was only because he was still watching Crowley in turn that he saw the way his face twisted up for a moment before smoothing out into neutrality. “Something wrong, my dear?”

“…don’t turn off the light,” Crowley finally managed, and Aziraphale nodded.

“Of course,” he said, and then he pulled the door shut just a bit, leaving a crack for light to spill into the hallway. 

He’d just reached the top of the stairs when he heard a strangled noise behind him that sounded like his name, and he immediately headed back. He found Crowley bracing himself on arms that trembled as he stared at the door, his chest heaving as he panted out harsh breaths. 

“Don’t leave,” he pleaded, before Aziraphale could say anything. “Please, don’t leave me.”

“I won’t,” Aziraphale assured him.

He hesitated when he reached the side of the bed, and then conjured up a chair that he pushed right up alongside. He settled into the chair, well within Crowley’s field of vision, and slowly Crowley relaxed back into the bed, again. 

Crowley stayed awake as long as he clearly could, forcing his eyes open every time they drooped closed for even a second, his gaze never leaving Aziraphale like he’d disappear if Crowley took his eyes off him. But finally sheer exhaustion won out and his eyes stayed closed, his breathing settling into a slower, measured pace. His wings twitched, even deeply asleep, and Aziraphale reached out to run a gentle hand over the back of his head and down his spine. 

“Sleep well,” he whispered, blessing Crowley with what little angelic magic his body could tolerate. “Sleep, and dream of peace.”

Then, he settled back in his chair with a book, prepared to sit and watch over Crowley’s sleep for as long as he was needed.


End file.
